Knowing and Making

This question is prompted by a few things. First, seeing the same commenters pop up on obscure and unrelated blogs as appear on famous and prominent ones (hello Min, dearieme, Don, to pick three at random). Second, meeting the author of one of my regular blogs at a show written by another , and finding they collaborated on the show I was at . Third, realising that although my readership is still relatively small (one day, Krugman, one day...), it includes a surprisingly high proportion of other bloggers whom I respect, and whose occasional links to me are flattering and pleasing. My first thought, then, is to wonder whether the blogosphere (at least the economics blogs) is populated by a few hundred people who just spend all their time reading each other's postings, and a few hundred more who comment on them. My second thought was, if it is, then that's not so bad. Mostly, the people with blogs are the ones you want to read your work - the thoughtful, intelligent...

From the Bloggers Circle : John Copps of New Philanthropy Capital is applying lessons from the record industry to charitable donations . Just as record companies are creating a wider range of distinct products, in an effort combat illegal copying and generate more revenue from devoted fans, charities should be doing the same to maximise their donations. An anonymous commenter points out that this is just price discrimination - and many industries have been doing it for decades. True enough, but there are lessons to learn from this. Price discrimination is less visible in either commodity or high-growth markets. If you sell commodities, it's harder to use price discrimination - although you will still see it on a smaller scale. The petrol market is fairly competitive, without many proprietary products, and thus there is far less diversity of price than in, say, the retail market for coffee. But because it is high-volume and the margins are small, 5p per litre of extra revenue for ...